Associated Partners

ICOM-PORTUGAL

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) is an organization of museum professionals committed to the conservation, study and communication to society of the world’s natural and cultural heritage, the latter being tangible or intangible. Created in 1946, ICOM is a non-governmental organization maintaining formal relations with UNESCO, and having a consultative status with the United Nation’s Economic and Social Council. ICOM gathers around 20 000 members from 140 countries, with the main component bodies including 114 National Committees and 30 International Committees.

The National Committees are the principal instruments of communication between ICOM and its members. Within each country, the National Committee ensures the management of ICOM’s interests, represents its members within ICOM and helps to implement ICOM’s program.

Three ICOM-Portugal experts will have the important role of working as a project observer, being present in project meeting, analyzing project documents and reports. Together with ICOM organizations such as CECA (Education) and ICTOP (professional guidelines and standards), this reflection and discussion group will ensure that this Transfer of Innovation project upholds high professional standards.

INSTITUTO POLITÉCNICO DE TOMAR

The Polytechnic of Tomar is a young institution. Its history dates back to the beginning of 1973, when it was created by ministerial decree but it was only in 1982 that installation of the School of Technology was possible. In 1986, the first bachelor degrees were created and classes held in an old downtown building, using laboratories located in several spots of the city. Finally, in 1992 it changed to a new campus with over 10 hectares. On 1 January 1997, it obtained the permanent statute of independent establishment housing three schools: the School of Technology and the School of Management at Tomar and the School of Technology at Abrantes. The Polytechnic comprises two campuses: the main campus in Tomar and the Abrantes campus (in the city of Abrantes). Today, about 4500 members integrate our academic community: 4000 of these are students, 300 are teachers and 125 are technical and administrative staff.

The IPT has an international reputation in the field of archaeology, cultural heritage and management, having co-ordinated several projects for the last 15 years. The Institute has been involved in projects related to Prehistoric Art, namely the most successful projects on EuroPreArt (http://europreart.net).
The Instituto Politécnico de Tomar role in this consortium is to evaluate and adapt the training goals and curricula to a course contextualized in its Post-Graduate and Master Programme, developing an Erasmus Mundus Master.
The Polytechnic also has a strong relationship with the public employment national agency and will make proposals for the development of specific VET courses targeted for unemployed and people without higher education.

What is Museum Mediation? See our videos

Highlight

«Museums have the responsibility to deconstruct their historically situated assumptions, missions, metaphors, conventions and practices [...] however museums are still caught into different dichotomised narratives that are presented as objective “truths”. To name a few, I am referring to the tyranny of chronology (Pollock, 2002), the romantic discourse of the artists as a genius, the current thematic approach in exhibition design or the notion of heritage as a commodity. I am also referring to the culture wars between directors, curators, educators, administrators, evaluators and visitors. And here is when we could ask:

Why can’t museums include multiple perspectives in their research processes, exhibition or educational policies and practices? Why can’t they treat visitors as equal voices?»